Episode 1 - The Baroque: Part 1
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Program
Isabella LEONARDA
Sonata, Op. 16, No. 1 in G Major
Jan Dismas ZELENKA
Sonata No. 5 in F Major
Arcangelo CORELLI
Trio Sonata, Op. 2, No. 1
Show Notes
Before the Baroque…
Before we begin, let’s take a quick look through the first eight centuries of Western music history to see just how we got here. While there is concrete evidence of music’s importance in classical antiquity, little notated music survives from the Ancient Greeks and Romans. It wasn’t until the Medieval period, during the late 9th-century, that we see tangible evidence of music notation.
While traditional historical views categorize the Medieval period as the “dark ages” it was actually a time of great innovation in the arts with achievements such as the Notre Dame Cathedral, Giotto’s frescoes, and some of the most intricate and revolutionary music manuscripts of all time. The late Medieval period was characterized by war, famine, and plague. The Black Death left behind an emotionally and economically crippled European society; however, as the 15th-century began, so did a period of rebirth in art, music, literature, and culture.
The Renaissance restored the learning, ideas, and values of the Ancient Greeks and Romans and highlighted the importance of the individual. Artists and thinkers such as Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo Buonarotti, Leonardo da Vinci and Filippo Brunelleschi flourished in Italy, and the world of music saw innovations such as the printing press, a new international style, and new genres such as the 16th-century Italian madrigal.
The Baroque
By the early 17th-century composers such as Claudio Monteverdi were ushering in a brand- new style, and consequently marked a new period in music history: the Baroque. At the time Europe was in the midst of a scientific revolution, led by Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Sir Francis Bacon, and René Descartes.
In the worlds of art, literature, and music there was a distinct focus on “the dramatic” and how to best reflect the spectrum of human emotion. Baroque thinkers emphasized the importance of an audience, a separate “public” who could watch the drama unfold, and in effect performers evolved into “professionals.”
Like the art and architecture of the time, music was highly ornamented and clearly reflected the stylistic norms determined by the nationality of the composer. The music of the Baroque centers around opera, church music, and for the first time in Western music history: instrumental music. Tonight you will hear three very different examples of the Baroque chamber sonata.
Isabella LEONARDA
Isabella LEONARDA was born in 1620 into a prominent family in Novara (a city in Northern Italy, west of Milan). At the age of 16 she entered the convent, where she remained for the rest of her life. She quickly rose up the ranks at the convent, holding positions such as “music instructor” “clerk” and eventually “mother superior.” It is therefore, not unlikely that she formally studied composition with Gasparo Casati, who was the maestro di capella at the Novara Cathedral.
Her output consists of about 200 compositions from nearly every sacred genre, and highlights her imitative writing, sensuous lyricism, and expressive word-painting. A pioneer of her time, Leonarda’s instrumental works (Op.16, 1693) are apparently the earliest published sonatas by a woman.
In this episode, you will hear the first of her 12 sonatas from the Op. 16 collection. Written in 1693, this work is a trio sonata for two violins and basso continuo. It is divided into six smaller sections, which vary with regard to tempo. Leonarda varies the texture by giving solo passages to all of the string instruments. While her instrumental output may be considered technically conservative, its harmonic landscape is quite advanced for the time.
Jan Dismas ZELENKA
Born in a small Bohemian village around 1679, Jan Dismas ZELENKA spend most of his life between Dresden and Prague. Compared to most of his contemporaries his musical output was not large, and he wrote his most important compositions in the early 1720s, during his final years. Despite this, he cultivated a highly original musical idiom and his collection includes multiple masses, extensive vocal sacred works, hymns, antiphons, some secular songs, and almost 20 instrumental works that feature the oboe and the bassoon.
His extraordinary collection of six sonatas for oboes, bassoon, and continuo can be viewed as derivatives of the Italian and Austrian church sonatas, with their ingenious and sophisticated use of imitative and fugal writing. They date from around 1720 and uniquely all call for the bassoon as an independent member, instead of solely a continuo instrument.
One of the most typical chamber music combinations in the Baroque period was the trio sonata, which featured two melody instruments and a basso continuo accompanying group (like the Leonarda you just heard). However, by inserting the bassoon as an independent voice that vacillates between an active melodic contributor and a member of the continuo squad, Zelenka breaks genre expectations. The writing for the oboe and bassoon is among the most difficult ever composed, and in this fifth sonata Zelenka pays homage to the Italian Concerto Grosso as well as the Polka. It is an incredibly florid and vivacious three-movement work that showcases the virtuosity of the entire ensemble.
Arcangelo CORELLI
Italian composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli had an unparalleled influence on music during his lifetime and for a long time afterwards. Born in 1653, near Ravenna, Corelli has a modest output; however, despite being small in size, it profoundly affected form, style, and instrumental technique of the Baroque period. Corelli, who was well respected as both a composer and violinist, eventually settled in Rome, but early in his career his reputation spread past local and national boundaries to instate him as a European phenomenon.
The dissemination of his works coincided with a remarkable boom in music publishing (around 1700) and up until Haydn, no other composers’ works received as many reprintings as Corelli’s. While today Corelli’s idiom may seem predictable and simple, at the time of its inception it was quite unprecedented and full of exciting novelties. He was the first composer to produce “classic” instrumental works, which were not only admired during his lifetime, but also continued to be studied long after their style became “old fashioned.”
The trio sonata was by far Corelli’s favorite compositional vehicle. His first four opus numbers are each collections of 12 trio sonatas for two violins and basso continuo. In this episode, you will hear the first trio sonata from opus 2 collection. Like all of Corelli’s works for the violin it showcases the agility of the violin, as well as the instruments ability to capture a cantabile, or singing, quality.
Credits
Musicians
Violins: Jean Huang and Freya Liu
Bass: Pete Walsh
Oboe: Andrew van der Paardt
Bassoon: Christina Dioguardi
Harpsichord: Julia Scott Carey
Staff
Principal Videographer: Scott Quade
Assistant Videographer: Chris DeSanty
Recording Engineer: Antonio Oliart Ros
Recording Engineer: Stephanie Rodgers
Video Editor: Michael Schondek
Research conducted by: Christina Dioguardi
Thank Yous
John Carey: for opening up his home
The harpsichord played in this episode is a William Dowd Double Harpsichord (1982)
Bibliography
Burkholder, J P., Donald J. Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
Carter, Stewart A. "Isabella Leonarda." Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.13920.
Stockigt, Janice B., Andrew Frampton, and Frederic Kiernan. "Zelenka, Jan (Lukáš Ignatius) Dismas." Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.30907.
Talbot, Michael. "Corelli, Arcangelo." Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.06478.